Media offer no alternative

Since it is part of the human condition that power corrupts, it makes for a healthy democracy to have an alternative government to the one in power available at each election. This is especially important in Ireland now. The present government has been power for 10 years. Even more disturbing is the fact that the Fianna Fail component of the government has been in power for most of the last 20 years. I want to emphasise that I am not making a party political point. It would be equally disturbing if one of the opposition parties were in government that long.

Despite this undesireable situation I perceive a relentless campaign is being run by a majority of political correspondents to undermine the possibility of any alternative government being offered in the next election. At the forefront of this campaign are Independent Newspapers and RTE news and current affairs. It also includes much of commercial radio and TV and some of our former imperial masters' organs of propaganda in this country such as the Daily Mail and the Sun.

The modus operandi of this campaign seems to me to have a number of characteristics. There is a total lack of critical analysis towards the sayings and doings of the powers that be in government. The fact, for example, that they use vast amounts of taxpayer's money and unlimited access to public service radio and television to project their image and make celebrities of themselves is not questioned. The cultivation of the image of the Taoiseach is of course all pervading. This includes obsequious interviews and myriads of flattering photographs day in day out in all media outlets. Most importantly this campaign is totally dedicated to the destruction of the credibility of the leadership of the main opposition parties.

If an opposition backbencher talks out of turn or one member of an opposition party does not say exactly the same as another that is taken as a reason for their not being fit for government. Meanwhile prominent members of the government can admit to taking money while holding public office, leaking police files to the media and trying to introduce an electronic voting system which the government's own commission said 'creates the potential for the legitimacy of the [electoral] system to be undermined' and noone in the media bats an eyelid.

Whether we need to replace our government with the present opposition is, I feel, an important issue to be decided at the next election. Instead most political correspondents want the election to decide a much narrower question. That is, who will be in government with Fianna Fail after the election? They are, therefore, deliberately attempting to undermine the democratic right of the electorate to have an alternative government available at election time. To put it mildly it is not wise. Taken to its logical conclusion it could result in replacing this democratic republic with a one-party state. It is an irresponsible abuse of their dominant media position by Independent Newspapers and RTE news and current affairs, both of whom are at the forefront of this campaign.

Anthony Leavy, Sutton, Dublin 13